Publishers:Photo images from this early Ameican motocross area, as well as FastDates.com
Calendar photography of the bikes and models from 1990 to the present
are available for Stock, Advertising and Edititorial use at normal industry
rates.

Private
Collectors:Custom prints and photo murals are available
at a premium rate.
Please note that Jim Gianatsis is a professional photographer, and his
archiavel Motocross and Stock Calendar and Model photography is valuable.
Requests for custom photo prints and mural prints are expensive and
very time consuming to discuss, research and then produce a custom order.
You are not only paying for the cost of the custom photo prints, but
our time to work with you and a per image artist's fee to cover Jim's
lifetime of work and dedication,

In late 1979,
after 10 years of traveling the national motocross circuit, jim
was turning 30 and thinking it was time to settle down with a
full time job again. He liked the central region of California
around San Francisco and had built up a close working relationship
with Geoff and Bob Fox, the owners of Moto-X Fox, one of the premier
emerging motocross product companies of the time with their Fox
Shox and motocross apparel. Jim went to work at Moto-X Fox as
their first Marketing Director, assisting Geoff with designing
the motocross apparel ine, while handling all the advertising
and catalog design and photogaphy for the company.
At Motocross Fox, Jim began photographing a featuring attractive
young girls in the Fox Catalog and magazine ads, the first time
this was ever done in what was thought of as a "male only"
sport. But it made good sense in that guys like looking at pretty
girls. It would provide a huge marketing advantage, one that would
be copied years later by all the major motocross apparel companies.

With his experience
as a test engineer and being a pro motocrosser, Jim also became
heavily involved in Fox Shock testing and design. With Jim's inside
contacts at the factory motocross teams it wan't long before team
Honda and other motocross teams were racing with the new Fox Twin
Clicker Shox.

Still racing
motocross, Jim suffered a couple of serious injuries in 1981 that
regretabbly forced his retirement from motocross. He also wrote
a book at this time "Design & Tuning for Motocross: published
by Classic Motorbooks, which remains today, the only technical
book on motocross bikes ever written.

Jim's attention
shifted back to the street where he got back into sportbike riding
with a Suzuki GS750E, and into car racing with a street legal
Camaro Z28 in SCCA Solo II autocross where he clinched runnerup
in the highly competivie BP race car class with Trans-Am spec
cars.

Jim introduced
the new Fox Factory Twin Clicker Motocross Shox to reigning Trans-Am
sports car champion Greg Pickett who becan running and winning
with the Fox Shox on his Corvette which proved to be the best
shocks of any type on the market at that time. Within 3 years
all the major race teams from Ford in IMSA to Penske in CART were
running Fox Shox. Eventually Penske would steal the Fox Shox Design
and sell it under his own name.

But Jim didn't
stop there. Why not introduce the Fox Shoxs to motorcycle roadracing
as well? Jim approached and tested with all the major factory
roadrace teams including Suzuki, Honda and Kawasaki and within
9 months all the roadracing teams were running Fox Shox that Jim
built, test and set up for them Wes Cooley wom the 1981 AMA Superbike
Championshipon his Yoshimura Suzuki Katana 11000, and Eddie Lawson
won the 1982 AMA Superbike Championship on his Kawasaki KZ1100,
both on Jim Gianatsis prepared Fox Resevoir Piggyback Shox

In January
1983 Jim had taken Moto-X Fox in just 3 years from 3 million in
sales annually to 12 million. And made them the leader in the
world motocross and suspension markets. But owner Geoff Fox was
wanting to turn over the reigns of his company to his wife and
children and fired Jim. Within 2 years Fox fell out of the streetbike
market and lost their automotive Shock market to Penske.

Jim moved
to Los Angeles in the winter of 1983 and began his own advertising,
photography and design agency specializing in the motorsports
market. Clients included Yoshimura, White Brothers. O'Neal USA,
Body Glove and Mikuni Carburetors.

Today Gianatsis
Design Associates with Jim at he helm has expanded its market
base with the worlds most popular line of motorsports pinup calendars,
the FastDates.com Calendars and Website. And into event promotion
with the Los Angeles Calendar Motorccyle Show, which started out
as a barbeque party at his house to celebrate the first release
of the first Calendar, to now become the biggest custom and performance
streetbike show in America.

Jim lives
in Woodland Hills, CA, just northeast of los Angeles in the San
Fernando Valley. He remains a hardcore sports car and sportbike
enthusiast. His cars include a highly modified late model BMW
M3 good for 190mph, a modified Mini Cooper S and a classic 1946 MG TC. Jim's
modified sportbikes once included an array of the best Japan had
to offer (a GSXR750 streetbike Jim built and was test by Motorcyclist
in 1984's bested Eddie Lawson's Rob Muzzy built ZX750 championship
winning AMA Superbike tested by Cycle magazine. Jim's favorite
bikes today are Ducati and his garage is home to previous generation
916 and 996R Superbikes, and the new 999R05 Superbike (all highly modified),
plus a Multistrada S and an Aprilia Mille R converted to
a Tuono R. And now most recently a Ducato 1098R 08 and Hypermoto R.

Jim's tenure at
Cycle News ran four years from 1969 to 1973 as the sport of motocross
skyrocketed to popularity in America. His race coverage, newspaper design
and photography in Cycle News was done in an editorial style never before
seen in the sport, similar to the emerging new Rolling Stone music newspaper.

Boring lap-by -lap
race coverage was set aside for the creation of exciting rivalries between
up and coming new American motocrossers like Tony D, Bob "Huricane"
Hannah and Marty Smith against the reigning World Champions like Roger
DeCoster and Heikki Mikkola. Nicknames including "The Hurricane"
"Typhoon Tripes", "Lumberjack" Burgett. "Jammin'"
Jimmy Weinert. "Gassin' " Gaylon Moiser and others were created
by Jim to elevate the riders to cult status among race fans.

Back then, riders
like Hannah, Weinert and tripes like to say what they felt with no regard
for keeping a "clean" promotional image, and Jim would ofthen
pose them leading questions to extract controversal comments from them
about their rivals to build epic on and off-track rivalries that would
go down in motocross history. 1970 to 1980 became the golden decade
of motocross history as directed and recorded in print and film by Jim
Gianatsis

Sharing in Jim's
enthusiasm for the sport and its rise to popularityat that time were
Jody Weisel, then editor of Cycle News Central based in Austin, Texas,
and freelance photographer Charlie Morey from Palm Beach, Florida.

Jody would later
become an editor at Cycle News West, and then Motocross Action magazine.
Charlie would replace Jim at Cycle News East, and then later Jody at
Cycle News West, and then around 1980 become editor of Dirt Rider.

In April 1973 Jim
left Cycle News East (which would within a few years merge with the
Central and West editions in Long Beach, CA) to go to work as Marketing
Director for Husqvarna East in Lorain Ohio. At that time Husky East
was owned by John Penton, and Jim lived in a communial house next door
to the Pentons, which was shared by visting factory riders. Jim lived,
practiced and trained with the likes of Heikki Mikkola, Kent Howerton,
Marty Tripes and Dick Burlsen and other motocross and enduro stars of
the time. Jim was involved in the development and testing of new bikes
like the Husky Automatic.

Jim's tenure at
Husky East was short lived as within the year Husqvarna of Sweden would
dissolve the Eastern office and merge it with Husquvarna West in San
Diego. Jim moved back to his parent's home in Biloxi Mississippi, and
returned to freelance motocross coverage of all the major national motocross
series and events for Cycle News, Motocross Action, Cycle World and
others. Much of the time Jim traveled and lived with the factory race
teams, the riders and the mechanics, as they traveled across the country
to race in box vans and worked on the bikes in hotel parking lots. Jim
shared in driving the vans, working on the bikes, and often slept on
the hotel room floors of his biddies Bob Hannah and Tony DiSterfano.

Being a pro caliber
motocrosser, factory test engineer and magazine bike teater, Jim was
the only motojournalist allowed to ride and test the exotic factory
works bikes of the era including the championship winning YZ250 of Bob
Hannha and Marty Smith's RC450, the RM250 Suzuki's of Danny LaPort and
Tony DiStefano. Often Jim was able to provide the younger riders and
factory teams with valueable input on the suspension setup and tuning
of their bikes.